


The Glass Cracks

by taichara



Category: Azure Striker Gunvolt
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:05:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2270802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not even the strongest resolve can hold out forever, and every ideal will find itself challenged at some time ... and not all of them survive the ordeal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Glass Cracks

**Author's Note:**

> _prompt: any, any, "Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge." -Paul Gauguin_

The coffee in his mug was stone cold, probably leftover from yesterday to boot; Asimov wouldn't have noticed, wouldn't have been able to guess how long the stuff was sitting there, wouldn't have cared. All his attention was riveted to the monitors perched on and angled over his once-immaculate desk and the footage they were playing back, the files they were displaying ...

_Three. He's encountered three on his own, and all of them were warped. Turned into some form of abomination by Sumeragi's so-called Glaive System._

_Those weren’t people, any longer. They were monstrosities._

His grip tightened on the mug, tight enough to squeak the ceramaplast against the skin of his hand. Three Adepts destroyed long before Gunvolt put an end to them – four all told so far, if he counted the one that had ambushed Zeno (and really, he needed to talk to Zeno about the when and where of that encounter … eventually). But the fourth was not by his protégé’s hand, oh no.

Asimov’s sight blurred crimson with rage, then as white as frozen lightning. No, that was not Gunvolt’s doing, his mercy killing …

_That hunter. Copen.  
I know his face; or, rather, I know who he resembles. _

_One of Sumeragi’s bastard researchers … it’s thanks to him that the Glaive system even exists. And now, a younger bastard is hunting us down. Not even a pretension of ‘aid’, now, is it?_

Unthinkingly, he raised the cold mug to his lips as he scanned another incoming transmission. All signs pointed to – of course – another Adept being harnessed to dance to Sumeragi’s tune; and what price would be paid this time?

And … would it matter, if the Sumeragi Group fell, in the end? Would it make any difference for psychics, for their people, his people, to dismantle the megacorp that tortured and violated them only to have other forces – shadowy, unknown, untrackable – slaughtering them like penned animals?

_Slaughtering us, yes, for the powers that set us apart from humanity …_

His eyes narrowed behind his visor; sparks flew, and the mug cradled in his fingers gave a tiny *ting* of protest at its mistreatment.

_… But you have no qualms about scavenging our remains to claim that power for yourselves, do you._

_We Adepts cannot be suffered to live, because we cannot be trusted._  
But you can.  
Is that how it is?  
Is that how you want to frame this situation,  humans? 

_And they claim that it’s we psychics who cannot be trusted._

There was no possible, no conceivable way that that bastard hunter created that technology on his own; not even with his – father’s? it would make sense if he were the first bastard’s son, the timeframe worked – skill could he have simply whistled that sort of weapon out of nowhere. No, he had to have a backer, which meant an organized effort not merely to control, but to annihilate all psychics. A war on two fronts, and there weren’t that many QUILL cells, not enough to confront Sumeragi and flush this new threat out …

… No. He was not going to allow this – this purge. 

Asimov ignored the *ting* of the mug, and the sudden splash of cold liquid across his front. His attention was elsewhere, sparked by fury and drawn to Gunvolt’s incoming transmissions as they were relayed in by Moniqa. 

He knew how to wipe out this threat. 

Forever.


End file.
